Golf is a popular pastime throughout the world. Most players strive for two things; to play more and to improve their game. The sport generally requires a large specific area set with a hole, is time consuming and can be expensive to play regularly. These factors combine to limit access to the sport.
For these reasons there is a large amount of practice equipment available to the golfer. These range from small putting targets and chipping nets to large permanent putting surfaces. Most of these devices are primarily aimed at practice rather than play and this is generally true of ball traps and hole simulators. Known devices are generally unidirectional or have ramps that deflect the ball, making them unable to truly simulate a hole, or are permanently fixed, inflexible or cumbersome.
The following prior art has been identified by the applicant(s): GB184409, GB400422, U.S. Pat. No. 5,971,863, U.S. Pat. No. 5,779,567, U.S. Pat. No. 5,655,776, WO9723259, U.S. Pat. No. 4,896,886, U.S. Pat. No. 4,647,047, U.S. Pat. No. 3,909,007, U.S. Pat. No. 3,838,888, U.S. Pat. No. 3,507,499, U.S. Pat. No. 3,424,464, U.S. Pat. No. 1,600,475, U.S. Pat. No. 333,857, U.S. Pat. No. 3,313,544, U.S. Pat. No. 3,184,240, U.S. Pat. No. 2,899,207, U.S. Pat. No. 2,742,293, U.S. Pat. No. 1,663,889, U.S. Pat. No. 1,529,749, U.S. Pat. No. 1,513,917, U.S. Pat. No. 1,427,537, GB2257637, GB2274066, GB2194893, GB2069343, GB2015353, GB1350842, GB128523, GB191514649, GB107540 and GB190901476.
The closest two documents of prior art are GB2069343 and U.S. Pat. No. 3,184,240. GB2069343 is concerned with an array of pins acting as escape-preventing means.
The closest ball trap using a number of flaps is U.S. Pat. No. 3,184,240. This device requires each flap to have two flap portions, one against which, in use, a ball would impact, causing the flap to pivot inwardly so that a second portion of tie flap would cover the ball to prevent tie ball from escaping. The device also has a conical base requiring the ball to ride up a slope before hitting the first portion of a given flap.